


why are you fighting all these feelings all the time?

by eddiekissbrak



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: College AU, First Meetings, M/M, extremely side hanbrough stanpat benverly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23995270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eddiekissbrak/pseuds/eddiekissbrak
Summary: Richie's annoying. Eddie just wants to make it through his first day.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 17
Kudos: 113





	why are you fighting all these feelings all the time?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vic_writes01](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vic_writes01/gifts).



> my gift for the it fandom exchange! thanks 2 east for the beta and 2 diana for existing

Richie Tozier is annoying from the moment Eddie meets him. Before he meets him, actually, because Eddie saw him earlier pushing a full-sized fridge through the dorm hallway (various magnets falling off and trailing behind him). That was annoying in itself — the rules clearly stated only mini-fridges were allowed in dorm buildings, (and honestly, how had he gotten that thing up the elevator?!) — but worse was the outfit on the kid: a safety-cone orange shirt layered over a blue tee beneath, topped horribly with a pair of beat-up, neon pink Converse. Eddie almost had to shield his eyes because the sight was so offensive. 

The killer, though — the final straw on the camel’s back — came when the guy turned around to grab one of the fallen magnets (Godzilla, Eddie guessed, or some other large reptilian beast) and smiled at a frozen, staring Eddie. Under a sweaty brow and gaudy glasses were green eyes, a smattering of freckles much lighter than his own, and two dimples framing the wide grin plastered on his face. 

It was infuriatingly, as stated before, annoying, for reasons Eddie didn’t care to think about for too long. 

“Hey,” the boy said, leaning against the fridge door and sending several more magnets skittering to the tiled floor. “Guess we’re neighbors.” 

Eddie, flushed and irritated at this horrifying turn of events, went wide-eyed before rushing into his room, swinging the door closed, and unpacking his things with far too much ferocity. 

Later that evening, once Eddie’s mom had left (after a lot of placating from Eddie), once Bill’s mom and Georgie had left (after a lot of placating from Georgie), and once Bill had stopped crying (for the second time), all Eddie wants is a nice, relaxing shower to wash the move-in day sweat off. 

“I’m going to shower,” Eddie says. Bill makes some sort of sobbing sound that Eddie takes as an  _ okay _ .

Just outside of his dorm, shower caddy full of Sonia-provided scentless soaps gripped tightly in Eddie’s fist, he nearly runs directly into six feet of gangly limbs and curls— six feet of gangly limbs and curls that is also carrying a shower-caddy, though his is practically barren compared to the fully-stocked Target aisle Eddie holds. There’s a Star Wars towel wrapped firmly around his waist —  _ only _ a towel. Maybe Eddie doesn’t need to take a shower right now, maybe he just needs to go to bed and hope that when he wakes up the last ten hours will disappear like a dream.

“Oh sh— oh,  _ shit _ !” The kid grins like he had earlier, dimpled and wide. “You must be Eddie.” 

Eddie doesn’t want to take his eyes away from where they’re firmly glued to the bathroom door down the hall (because he’s already red in the face and looking at this guy just makes him redder for some stupid, incomprehensible reason), but that catches his attention. 

“How do you know my name?” Eddie asks, eyebrows furrowing. 

“You don’t know?” The guy’s tone turns teasingly shocked. His voice drops, and he quickly glances around as though to check if anyone was listening. “I’m  _ psychic _ .” 

“Ha ha,” Eddie huffs, though it lacks humor — it’s kind of unsettling that his weird neighbor already knows his name.

“I’m serious! Here, watch.” Eddie, against his better judgement, pulls his focus from the sweet haven of the bathroom only ten feet away and follows the kid’s hand, which now points across the hall to the open common area. A few people mill about nervously, introducing themselves and staring out the wall of windows to the quad below. “Someone is going to sneeze right… now.” 

Nothing happens.

“Shit, I must’ve been a little off. Sometimes my brain is so far in the future it throws off the timing. Here, it’s gonna happen in five… four… three… two… one… now.” 

Nothing. 

“Wow,” Eddie deadpans, still watching the common room. “You’re really good at this.”

“Okay okay, I got this: third time’s the charm. I’ll give it ten, just in case. Ten...nine...eight…” Eddie, feeling brave and stupid, lets his gaze shift. The guy’s eyes are bright, alight with some manic, untamed energy even behind the thick lenses that sit precariously on the tip of his nose. He’s taller than Eddie, tall enough that if Eddie were any closer he’d have to crane his neck to look up at him, and his mop of damp curls add another inch at least. He is, Eddie admits begrudgingly to himself, incredibly attractive. A dork, of course, there’s no denying that — not with the towel and the obscene fashion choices and the goofy grin that hangs off his lips like honey — but a really, really attractive dork. 

Eddie swallows. This is bad, bad news — and very, very annoying. 

“Three... two… one…  _ now _ .” Nothing. Then, a beat later, someone coughs. “Ha!” The guy turns his attention back to Eddie, who’d forgotten to look away. “Close enough. See? Psychic.” The guy puffs out his chest, still beaming, and takes on what sounds like British accent — if that British person had a terrible, terrible cold, and was also not British at all. “That’ll teach you to doubt the powers of Knows-When-Someone’s-Going-To-Sneeze-Man!”

Eddie’s mouth, that traitorous thing, twitches with the urge to smile. “You might want to work on that name.”

“Yeah, not catchy enough is it?”

“No, no it’s not.” 

They stand there for a moment just looking at each other, Eddie fighting off a smile and the other kid fully embracing his, until someone in the lounge sneezes for real and Eddie remembers he’d been on his way to shower. 

“Excuse me,” Eddie says, flattening out the amusement in his face and stepping around the tall, attractive,  _ annoying _ road block in his way. 

“See you later, Eddie!”

He doesn’t turn around to check, but Eddie feels eyes on him the entire way down the hall. 

Post-shower (and post-minor breakdown about whether finding a boy who dressed like a randomized sim attractive is a sign of potential blindness or not), Eddie stops suddenly before opening his dorm door. Taped to the wood are little hand-cut paper oxen — the mascot of Paul Bunyan University. On one, Bill’s name is printed in neat handwriting, and on the other, Eddie’s name in the same script. Probably made by one of their R.As, Eddie assumes, to keep the other kids on the floor from drunkenly stumbling into the wrong room, or maybe to help them learn each other’s names. 

Oh.  _ Oh. _

Casually, as casual as can be, Eddie takes a few steps backwards until he stands in front of his neighbor’s door instead. The first tag says  _ Mike _ , but Eddie dismisses that as a possibility as soon as he sees the other tag. What was originally  _ Richard _ is now crossed out, replaced with  _ Richie _ ! in almost illegible scrawl. Eddie holds back an eye-roll when he reads what’s below that, also written in chicken scratch:  _ Knows-When-Someone’s-Going-To-Sneeze-Man _ . 

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs to himself. Abruptly, he realizes he’s standing in front of a stranger’s dorm room talking to himself in only a robe, and promptly turns on his heel to return to his room. 

“H-how are the showers?” Bill asks, looking like he’d been crying again. Eddie feels a brief pang of guilt over leaving Bill to his own homesick devices, but Bill has this thing where he pretends to have allergies when he cries, so it wouldn’t have been beneficial to stay anyway. 

“Filthy,” Eddie says, and places his shower caddy and crocs in the corner to dry. “Someone already plugged up one of the drains with hair. It’s been ten hours!” Eddie shudders. “Think of what it’ll be like by next weekend.”

“Just shuh-shower with your eyes closed,” Bill says simply.

“Closing my eyes won’t make the germs disappear, Bill.”

“It’s a shuh-shower. There c-can’t be that many germs.” 

Eddie blinks at his best friend, mouth opening slightly before he snaps it closed and lets the whole thing go. It bothers him just how wrong Bill is, but since Bill keeps looking at the picture of him and Georgie hanging on the wall and sniffling, Eddie figures he can go a night without being lectured on the different types of molds that grows in drain pipes. 

Bill sniffles again before wiping a hand across his face and sliding off the loft bed. “Duh-do I look like I’ve been crying?” 

“No,” Eddie lies.

“Okay, guh-good.” Bill stands there, staring, and Eddie slowly looks away from his closet to meet Bill’s big blue eyes. 

“What?”

“Are you g-getting dressed?” 

“Yes?” Eddie says slowly.

“Well, hurry up! That thing stuh-starts in like twenty minutes.”

Eddie knows perfectly well which  _ thing _ Bill’s referencing, but he still turns back to the neatly hung clothes and asks “What thing?”

Bill sighs heavily. “The — the thuh- _ thing _ ! The midnight kickball, um.” His eyebrows scrunch into the middle of his face so deep it kind of looks like it hurts to think. “The all-hall thing,” Bill says finally, pleased with himself for remembering the correct terminology. 

Right, the midnight kickball all hall thing. There’d been hundreds of little green flyers around the halls advertising it, and when Eddie had started moving in this morning, an R.A with wild dirty blond curls had slid one into his hand and said “no running necessary!” after clocking the inhaler on top of the hefty first aid box he was lugging upstairs. Of course Sonia had quickly thrown the flyer away, telling him he’d be getting a good night’s rest instead of playing dangerous games with strangers. 

Eddie clears his throat. “I don’t know if I’m going.” 

Sonia’s disapproval has nothing to do with Eddie’s hesitance; he hasn’t fed into her ‘fragile son’ anxieties since he was a kid. In fact, when he first saw the flyer he’d been looking forward — somewhat nervously — to meeting the rest of the people he’d be sharing a dorm with for the next eight months. 

Then he’d met Richie.

“Wh-what? Why not?” Bill pushes the closet door closed so he can catch Eddie’s eye. “Yuh-you promised you’d go with me!” 

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Ed _ die _ .” 

Now, Eddie’s got one hell of a puppy-dog stare. He was born with big, dark brown eyes, naturally framed with thick black lashes that only made his eyes look that much bigger when he fluttered them. Eddie’s pleading face is a weapon, and he uses it as such when necessary. Bill’s puppy-dog eyes are a worthy opponent, though — watery blues that pull the victim in so deep it’s practically impossible to say no. “Puh-please?” Bill says, blinking hopefully. 

Aim, shoot, fatality. 

“Fine,” Eddie huffs, like there was any way he’d make his best friend go to their first real college event alone. Eddie could avoid Richie, surely; there would be no need to interact with such an annoying distraction at a kickball game this big. “Let me get dressed.”

*** 

“Eddie! Hey, Eddie!”

Two steps onto the quad, Eddie almost turns right back around. His lungs are filled with leaves, dry and fluttery like the ones just turning orange on the big oak trees, and when Richie peels himself away from the crowd to jog over, a fan clicks on and whirls them around Eddie’s chest in a gentle storm. 

Bill throws him a questioning look. “Yuh-you already made friends?” 

“No,” Eddie says. 

Richie’s wearing some obnoxious neon green t-shirt that says  _ women want me, fish fear me _ , and he’s got black marks messily streaked beneath his eyes like athletes in movies. “Well, well, well, look who it is. You here to play kickball, Eds?”

“No, I’m here to do homework — don’t call me Eds!” 

Richie just grins, which only serves to make Eddie’s cheeks go pink. It’s dark out, at least, but he’s sure it’s still visible under the tall street lamps that line the sidewalk surrounding the quad. “Who’s your friend?”

“What, you didn’t read his name tag, too?” 

Richie laughs now, bright and loud against the September air. “Damn, you figured me out, huh?”

“And I really thought you were psychic too,” Eddie sighs, unable to keep his smile at bay this time. “Disappointing.” 

Bill still hasn’t said anything. When Eddie manages to peel his eyes away from Richie’s magnetic gaze, he finds Bill staring off, mouth hanging open in the wind. 

“Bill,” Eddie says, and when he doesn’t get a response, he elbows Bill gently in the ribs. “Bill.”

“Wh-?” Bill blinks, dragging his gaze away from whatever. “Suh-sorry. What? Hi. I’m Buh-Bill.” 

“My roommate,” Eddie says to Richie, who waves cordially before his attention is right back on Eddie. “We went to highschool together. He’s a little spacey. Where’s your roommate? Or did you scare him off with your psychic powers already?” 

Richie scoffs. “Actually, Mike is very impressed by my superpowers. He thinks I’m the real deal; asked me for my autograph and everything.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure.” 

“He’s around here somewhere — oh!” Richie lifts one of his stupidly long arms into the air and waves it around wildly, signaling to someone in the crowd. “Mike! Hey! Over here!” Whoever he’s trying to call to doesn’t hear him — or ignores him — so Richie drops his arm. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you. The game’s gonna start soon anyway.” 

Eddie barely remembers to grab Bill before he follows Richie like a fucking puppy — annoying, so annoying, he reminds himself — and they cross the quad to the gathering mass of people in the center. 

“Mike!” Richie says again, and this time a tall, athletic looking guy turns to answer. 

“Hey!” Brown eyes scan over Eddie and Bill, and when Mike smiles at them both, it’s dazzling. “I’m Mike. Nice to meet you guys!” 

Eddie’s a nervous guy, but something about Mike’s smile is so soothing that he feels at ease in the moment. He sticks out his hand. “Eddie,” he says softly. “Nice to meet you.” 

Once again, Bill is silent. He’s got that same dumbstruck look on as he wore across the field, and belatedly Eddie realizes that Mike must’ve been who he was staring at before. Oh, Jesus. Eddie elbows him in the ribs again, this time not so gently. 

“Bill!” Bill squeaks, and then goes bright red when Mike grins. “I’m Buh-Bill. Denbuh-brough. Nuh-nice meet to you! Uh, I mean. Nuh-nice to muh-meet you. Too. Nuh-nice to muh-meet you, too.” 

Eddie cringes for him, but Mike just smiles and smiles like he’s never seen something better than this. “Yeah,” Mike says. “Real nice to meet you, Bill.” 

Beside him, Richie snorts, and Eddie bites his cheek so he won’t laugh too. 

“Alright everyone!” In the center of the field stands the R.A from earlier, her big blond curls now pulled into an untamed ponytail. She’s got the black streaks under her eyes as well, and the guy standing to her left has them too. “Come grab a piece of paper to see which team you’ll be on — mine, or the losing one!”

Beside her, the other R.A rolls his eyes “In your dreams, Patty. Line up everyone, line up!” 

It’s not surprising when Richie and Eddie end up on the same team, nor when Bill and Mike end up together, too. 

“What do you know,” Richie says as Bill and Mike trot over to join Patty’s team. “Must be fate.” 

Eddie, who’d pretended not to see when Mike and Richie subtly traded pieces of paper, wills away the red tint on his freckled cheeks. “Must be.” 

Their team fills out quickly with boys and girls from the other floors of the building. A girl with a flash of bright red hair and the sharpest smile Eddie’s ever seen introduces herself as Beverly. 

“Bev, if you’re nasty,” she adds, and the kid beside them — Ben, Eddie remembers — mumbles a quiet, awed  _ wow _ . 

Their R.A and dodgeball team captain for the evening quiets everyone down before introducing himself as Stan Uris. “We’ll have a more formal meeting tomorrow at our individual floor meetings,” he says. “All you need to know right now is that I love winning, and if we don’t win, I’ll buse every party you even think about throwing.” His tone is so deadpan that Eddie feels a chill go down his back. “I’m serious. Destroy Patty’s team, or else.” Stan smiles then, something genuine and sweet that crinkles his eyes and his cheeks and gives Eddie a thorough smack of whiplash. “Now, let’s have some fun!”

“He’s totally banging Patty,” Bev says once Stan walks towards the pitch. Eddie squawks.

“How do you know?” He asks.

“Patty’s got a hickey the size of Las Vegas on her shoulder,” Bev says simply. Richie almost breaks his neck craning it to see Patty from across the field. “The whole competition thing? Flirting.” 

“Wanting to destroy someone means you’re flirting with them?” Eddie asks. Beside him, Richie smirks. 

“What do you think, Eds?”

Impulsively, Eddie snaps “Don’t call me  _ Eds _ .” He doesn’t miss the way Bev and Richie catch eyes, amusement radiating off of them in waves. “Oh, shut up, Richie.”

It’s the first time Eddie’s said his name out loud like this, and when Richie grins, it’s fucking shark-like. “I didn’t say anything!”

Ben, the saint, puts a big hand on Eddie’s shoulder and gives him a couple pats. “Let’s go get in line to kick, Eddie. You can aim for his face.” 

“Pfft! We’re on the same team!” Richie argues, but Eddie and Ben are already crossing the field, followed closely by a laughing Bev. “Hey! Wait for me!”

***

The game seems to be a pretty even match, both teams a nice conglomerate of people taking the game seriously and people like Richie, who won’t stop cracking jokes right as Eddie steps up to plate. 

“Cut it out!” Eddie says after the fifth time of kicking straight air. He’s trying so hard not to laugh, to latch onto that  _ god he’s annoying _ feeling, but it’s clearly not working out for him. “We’re on the same team!” 

“That didn’t stop you from throwing the ball in my face last inning.” 

“It was an accident!” 

“Tell that to my cheekbone, Eddie.” Richie gives an exaggerated pout, stroking over his (completely uninjured) face with long fingers that Eddie refuses to let himself think too hard about. “Fine. We’re even now. Go on, kick the ball. Get us a home run!”

Eddie glares at Richie before stepping back up to the plate — aka a small orange cone that Stan and Patty had set up in lieu of real bases. Mike’s at the pitcher’s mound, looking completely unsurprised by Richie and Eddie’s interaction. He throws Eddie a questioning thumbs up, and Eddie nods to signal he’s ready. 

The ball comes bouncing across the grass, and just as Eddie rears back to kick, Richie gives a loud, screeching wolf whistle and, once again, Eddie kicks through nothing but air. 

“Strike three!” Patty cries gleefully from first base. Stan looks murderous, but Patty throws him a wink and Eddie watches his face melt into the most adoring expression he’s ever seen outside romance films. 

“See?” Bev says from over Eddie’s shoulder. “Flirting!” 

Eddie’s not really listening; his eyes are locked on Richie who, despite the glare Eddie’s giving him, looks positively giddy. 

“So close, Eds,” Richie says. “You’ll get it next time.” 

So annoying. So fucking annoying. Eddie is overwhelmed by how much he wants to punch Richie and, to his dismay, kiss him. Shit, he wants to kiss Richie so bad. “I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Can’t kick a ball, can’t kick my ass.” Richie’s so fucking smug as he passes Eddie on the way to take his turn at bat; Eddie almost grabs him by the face and kisses him right there. It’s such a heady feeling — Eddie’s never kissed anyone outside of a weird, slobbery peck from his neighbor Myra he did on a dare. He doesn’t think kissing Richie would be slobbery or weird, though. Eddie thinks kissing Richie would be really, really, really nice; mostly because it would keep Richie from making his stupid, annoying comments. 

“Tell you what,” Richie says, turning around before Mike can throw the ball. Stan sighs heavily from his spot on the sidelines, but he doesn’t try to keep Richie on track either. “If I don’t get a home run right now, you can kick my ass.” 

Eddie shifts. He doesn’t actually want to hit Richie — okay, well, maybe he does a little. Richie’s been goofing around the whole game, though, and has yet to make it further than first base on one of his kicks. The idea of him actually getting a homerun is laughable, which means the possibility of Eddie winning this ultimatum is pretty high. He raises an eyebrow anyways, listening. “Oh?”

“Yep.”

“What about if you do get a home run?” 

Richie crosses his arms over that fucking fish fear me shirt and has the nerve to look smug. “You let me take you on a date.” 

Stan groans and brings a hand up to rub at his temples. Eddie thinks he hears a grumble of fucking freshman under Stan’s breath, but he’s a bit busy trying to remember how to use his lungs to focus on anything other than the propsal set out for him.

A date. A real date. With Richie. Richie, who he met a handful of hours ago, who wears dumb clothes and has an allergy to listening. Richie, who looks a bit nervous behind the cocky facade he’s had on since he first bumped into Eddie in the hallway with that enormous fridge. 

“Eddie,” Ben whispers, and Eddie blinks. He clears his throat. 

“A date,” he repeats, and Richie nods. The leaves in Eddie’s chest spin violently, shaking the walls of his lungs and making Eddie’s breaths short and shallow. “Alright. Yeah. Prepare to have your ass kicked, Richie.” 

A smile spreads over Richie’s face, honeyed and real, and Eddie looks away before his head explodes. 

“Are you done now? Can we play?” Stan rolls his eyes but Eddie thinks he sees amusement behind the frown he pastes on. “Let’s go, Mike! Roll the ball!” 

Everything turns to slow motion when Mike pitches the ball. Alright, it doesn’t actually, but Eddie’s so full of tension he could fucking pop, and it sure as shit feels like the world is turning slower. Bev and Ben and Stan and his team and Patty’s team all drop away; all Eddie can see is Mike, Richie, and the red rubber ball that bounces across the grass between them. Eddie’s never wanted anything the way he wants Richie to actually succeed — to kick the ball so far that the outfielders give up looking for it.

_ Eddie Kaspbrak you are so, so stupid.  _

Richie kicks the ball and it fucking soars. Bev gasps; Stan drops his clipboard. Eddie doesn’t do anything but watch as the ball flies over everyone’s heads towards the library in the distance and the outfielders slowly jump into action to chase it down. When Eddie’s eyes slide back to the home plate, Richie’s already gone. He’s running around the bases, long legs pumping so fast that he almost outruns the poor kids who’d been stuck on first and second base respectively since before Eddie struck out. Past second, past third, Richie slides across the grass of home base long before the red ball comes bouncing back into play. 

But Richie doesn’t stop moving once he hits home base. He goes right past Stan, who’s grinning triumphantly at Patty; past Bev, who looks thoroughly entertained, and Ben, who’s looking at Bev. Richie doesn’t stop running until he’s in front of Eddie, panting and wheezing worse than Eddie when he’s having one of his ‘asthma attacks’. 

“So,” Richie says, chest heaving. “About that date.” 

Eddie just stares, dumbfounded. Slowly, a smile tugs at his lips, and this time he doesn’t try to stifle it at all. Eddie still kinda wants to hit Richie, so he does; a soft punch to his bicep, more of a shove than anything else. Eddie also still wants to kiss him. He doesn’t do that, though. Instead he rolls his eyes, mouth curled into a smile. “You’re so annoying, Richie.” 

“I know,” Richie says. “We can talk about it over dinner tomorrow.” 

They do talk about it over dinner. Eddie tells Richie he’s annoying no less than ten times. It’s okay, though, because after dinner Richie finally shuts up — it only takes one kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> talk 2 me @ kissbrak on tumblr


End file.
